Trade unions and employers' associations play an important role in Germany not only in wage setting, but also in social policy and labour market regulation. While the majority of companies are organised in employers' associations, less than one fifth of employees are still members of a trade...

Trade unions and employers' associations play an important role in Germany not only in wage setting, but also in social policy and labour market regulation. While the majority of companies are organised in employers' associations, less than one fifth of employees are still members of a trade...

If a profit-maximising firm credibly commits to an employment-enhancing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objective in negotiations with a trade union, the union can reduce its wage demands. Lower wages, ceteris paribus, raise profits, while the increase in employment enhances the payoff of...

This paper examines the relationship between union membership and deaths of despair. Using state-level variation in the timing of the adoption of right-to-work (RTW) laws as a natural experiment, I show that right-to-work laws are associated with a decline in union membership and an increase in...

Collective bargaining has a marginal and steadily diminishing role in employment regulation in Hungary. Flaws in the legal framework are certainly among the main reasons behind low and decreasing coverage. In the light of ILO standards and comparative national examples, this article analyses the...

Can collective bargaining mitigate monopsony power? This paper addresses this question by examining how the regulation of noncompete agreements for employees by collective agreements affects firm-level markdowns in the French manufacturing sector. Using a staggered difference-in-differences...

This editorial shows how the digital economy continuously reshapes work and employment. Based on a literature review, it illustrates that digitalization frequently implies job loss, de-skilling and measures to restrict co-determination and participation of labor. However, digitalization also...

We shed light on an understudied group: retirees in unions. Using representative individual-level data of 19 European countries, we find that the share of retirees in unions and the union density of retirees increased between 2008 and 2020. Econometric analyses indicate that on average retired...

We shed light on an understudied group: retirees in unions. Using representative individual-level data of 19 European countries, we find that the share of retirees in unions and the union density of retirees increased between 2008 and 2020. Econometric analyses indicate that on average retired...

We shed light on an understudied group: retirees in unions. Using representative individual-level data of 19 European countries, we find that the share of retirees in unions and the union density of retirees increased between 2008 and 2020. Econometric analyses indicate that on average retired...

Labor unions play a crucial role in liberal democracies by influencing labor market and political dynamics, organizing workers' demands and linking them to parties. However, their importance has progressively diminished in the last decades. We suggest that technological change - and industrial...

This paper investigates the relationship between China’s import competition and the innovation strategies of domestic firms. Using firm level data from Italy spanning 2005-2010 and employing IV fixed effects estimation techniques, we find that the impact of China’s import competition on...

Short-time work (STW) has been widely used, both during the Great Recession and the COVID crisis, to preserve jobs. In most European countries, the implementation of STW schemes is often the result of bargaining between trade unions and employers, yet very little is known about the role of...

The operation of American labor markets during the two World Wars is described and the well-being of civilian workers during those years is assessed. These were periods when decentralized capitalism was replaced with a system of centralized direction and control that some would call socialism....

A series of studies show that unions and works councils have an influence on workers' political activities and attitudes. However, at issue are the transmission channels through which worker representation impacts workers' political activities and attitudes. This article discusses from a...

A series of studies show that unions and works councils have an influence on workers' political activities and attitudes. However, at issue are the transmission channels through which worker representation impacts workers' political activities and attitudes. This article discusses from a...

A series of studies show that unions and works councils have an influence on workers' political activities and attitudes. However, at issue are the transmission channels through which worker representation impacts workers' political activities and attitudes. This article discusses from a...

This article reviews quantitative research on unions and collective bargaining in Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses the consequences of unions for wages, inequality, economic performance and employer-employee relations. The article also highlights the role of unions in society, a role that goes...

In Chile during the period 2006-2016, workers' organization and industrial insurgency grew, especially in the export sectors of the economy. The conventional approach has labeled this period as one of union renewal since rank-and-file organizations involved measures such as strikes and raised...

The effects of trade unions on firm performance are theoretically ambiguous. The sizable empirical literature on their effects is almost exclusively confined to developed countries, particularly those in North America and Europe. We contribute to the literature by estimating union effects on...

Social interactions between young and senior colleagues might have consequences for union membership uptake of young workers, thus influencing public policies on unions. We apply Norwegian administrative register data to test this claim about the influence of social interactions on unionization,...

U.S. manufacturing facilities generate approximately 30 billion pounds of hazardous waste annually, 10% of which is released into the environment. The negative economic and health impacts of such toxic chemicals are significant (Currie et al., 2015; Aguilar-Gomez et al., 2022). It is therefore...

We study the role of union heterogeneity in shaping wages and inequality among unionized workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil and job moves across multi-firm unions, we estimate over 4,800 union-specific pay premia. Unions explain 3-4% of earnings variation. While unions...

We study the role of union heterogeneity in shaping wages and inequality among unionized workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil and job moves across multi-firm unions, we estimate over 4,800 union-specific pay premia. Unions explain 3-4% of earnings variation. While unions...

Since 1995, the European Commission has authorised the marketing of medicines across the whole European Union. Central authorisations are valid in all EU Member States and are based on rigorous scientific evaluations by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which gathers experts from all Member...

This paper investigates whether workers' bargaining power, which extends beyond union membership to collective wage agreements in Germany, affects the level and distribution of wages at the regional level. We conduct fixed-effect regression analysis and a DFL decomposition on SOEP data from 2014...